His days John Cale in Los Angeles, they flow quietly, but not violently. Work, some exercise, some more work, some walks in the sun, and back to work.

The Welsh musician turned 80 last March. About 60 of those years he spent in the studio, on stage or anywhere that allowed him to write and play music without interruption. And this is the counter-narrative that follows John Cale. He’s not the only one who took his viola to get in Factory from Andy Warhole and come out as a member Velvet Underground, as one of the “culprits” of “Velvet Underground & Nico” or otherwise, “Banana” or whatever, “a record that sold only 30,000 copies at the time of release, but whoever bought it formed a band”, as Brian Eno said, with whom their creative paths crossed many times.

He was the same kid who in the early 60s played next to the “dad” of minimalism. La Monte Young and then with him terry riley, who later sat in the producer’s chair for his cold elegy “Marble Index” her Niko and placed his obol in the proto-punk catalog from the same position for his eponymous debut. puppets, what from Modern lovers but also “Horses”, the record that changed her Patti Smith into the priestess of punk.

Maybe it’s because he grew up in a house with an “imperfect sense of the language” since Welsh was the “official language” and his father only spoke English. Perhaps it was this feeling that led John Cale throughout his career to attempt to speak the “international” language of music, acrobatically balancing between the academicism he inherited from the world of viola and the cultivation of an immediacy of rock and reality pop that never existed. afraid to look in the light of his time. In the end, 2012 after dozens of works and without the need to prove anything, John Cale with “Changing Adventures in the Nuki Forest” put on the most playful record of his career, even inviting a producer to it Dangerous mouse.

A whole decade (and more) has passed since then. A decade in which the world experienced the greatest environmental crisis we have ever experienced, a health crisis none of us expected to experience, controversial world leaders in power, and a war that still rages on. In “his” world, John Cale covered the 1982 “Music For A New Society” tracks as “M: FANS”, collaborated with “Etheria” producer tecno Kelly Lee Owens, helped the director Todd Hines with documentary “Velvet Underground” and he wrote a record that he finished just before the pandemic, but for it to reach our ears, he had to wait until the early days of 2023. In the meantime, he explains, he had the opportunity to rework, change, and in some cases completely replace tracks from the album’s original arrangement. time”.

On what we hope will be his 17th studio album and his first new material since 2012, the evergreen Welshman asks…“Mercy.” It was this realization of our dark times that led the musician to sing such words as “Seeking mercy, more and more.” However, it is not that he is losing hope in humanity. On the contrary, he believes that “we can find the right mercy and give it. In fact, we should.”

So the thread that runs through these 12 new John Cale tracks is about topics like “lies, disinformation, conspiracy theories, guns, violence and so much hate.” In the end, the musician says that he wants nothing more than for people to enlist the truth to help heal the trauma caused by this whole mess.

Looking at the Mercy tracklist, in addition to the amazing title “Feet of Marilyn Monroe”, you will see in the credits the names of musicians who were not even born when John Cale was great: from “Vila, Darling” Weiss Blood to manufacturer Actress and from her a very interesting case laurel halo, before them animal team, them Sylvan Esso and Fat white family.

The spirit of exploration continues unabated for John Cale. He continues to listen to new music, as evidenced by the above meetings, going beyond genres. “I don’t want to make music that strictly fits into a certain category” – he confidently declares, because “stretching is the best for creativity.” But he prefers to listen to music that goes beyond genres, reminding himself that “you need to keep the desire to discover, to seek.”

Of course, when starting work on “Mercy”, John Cale didn’t know that he would end up with such a long list of guests on the album. “As some of the stuff I wrote began to take shape in the studio, I started to wonder if a different voice or point of view could help express what I had in mind,” he explains.

Most of the meetings with the guests of the album took place in close-up sessions, between Los Angeles and London. It wasn’t the first time John Cale was with some of these musicians such as laurel halo, with whom he previously shared the stage in Australia. “I’ve always loved the sophisticated style of her vocals,” Cale explains of the musician we hear on the title track of his new album.

The next day, John Cale came into the studio with this idea: to write a song to say “Legs of Marilyn Monroe” but nowhere in the lyrics is the absolute blonde star mentioned. By improvising around disparate lyrics, the track began to take shape, and parts resembling fragments of a dream were created. In the process, Cale looked for something else to complete the puzzle and found it on his face. Actress. “When I brought this work to London, we were sitting in the studio, he cut and sewed on his machines to create these wonderful textures, like a warm blanket. I asked him to take some of my vocals, add distortion to them and put them back on the track. And it worked out great,” the musician recalls of making “Marilyn Monroe Feet.”

As for her Weiss Blood, which we heard with Cale already from the first single of the album, “History of Blood” the musician does not hide his gratitude. It was the voice he was looking for to accompany him in the chorus, and when the musician entered the studio, Cale was impressed by the range of her voice: “It was amazing that her ‘slanted’ notes in this swirling song.”

“I think David [Μπόουι] and I could make interesting music, but you can’t turn back time.”

The creation of Mercy seems to have been a road for John Cale, with many possible ramifications he traced on the spot. As a result, he completed the pieces and even looked for where they are mentioned, who is the person who gives meaning to their story. It took about a dozen of his versions. “Lunar”, for a while he believed that this work would never be finished, before the final version “speaks” by itself that this is a song about an old acquaintance: Niko. And yet, until today, he wrote nothing about her, except: “Suddenly I recognized the woman in the article. Someone who was looking for his place, his peace, his acceptance, with self-destruction as the catalyst, trying to fight for one more day.”

John Cale never stopped reconciling the past with the present. One day he returned to “Paris 1919”, write one of the most famous records of his career, and then he wrote “Songs for Drella” (1990) along with Lou Reed or a pop/rock opera about Andy Warhol. Today he remembers the era he made “Night Crawl” With David Bowie in New York in the 70s, “when going from club to club was both exciting and dangerous.” What if, instead of hedonistic nights in the clubs of the Big Apple, the two of them decided to go to the studio? “I think David and I could write some interesting music, but you can’t go back in time,” Cale says.

Time only goes forward. Now that John Cale is happily entering his ninth decade, isn’t it time for him to slow down? Probably no. After all, he says that he can’t wait to go on tour to exchange energy with the public, as well as start working on his next album. He’s got the (significant?) 80 new tracks he’s written over the last year.

“I don’t care about birthdays” he says, trying to beat time even with words. Furthermore, “They are not inherently creative or interesting, and so they are just added to the current week.”

“Mercy” by John Cale is released by Domino, distributed by Rockarolla.